April 30, 2010

Accurate?

Let's start from the beginning....the Dishwasher Nazi-and I say that in the most loving way possible hubby dear-is very strict about what goes in the dishwasher and what gets washed by hand. To his credit-I am not the only one that has to do the dish washing around the house. Well, his logic in the whole thing has been that the dishwasher uses more water than washing dishes by hand. So, I just obliged-I will be honest and say that I sneaked a few "no no" items in the dishwasher on occasion-and didn't question it or google it for that matter. Well, just about a week ago as Jeremy was unloading the dishwasher I got busted. It was one of those "according to Jeremy no no items". I didn't know this at the time but he took a little time out from the unloading duty in order to google the whole items that should and should not go in the dishwasher-I guess to put an end to my not following the dishwasher rules that the Dishwasher Nazi set. To his surprise he actually found that the dish washing MACHINE uses LESS water than the good old fashioned method of washing dishes by hand!! Fortunately, he shared this wonderful news with me so that I could shove whatever (with the exception of my knives and Kitchen Aid stuff) would fit in the thing!!

Well, since I am not used to this dishwasher freedom I have had a little trouble. Let's just say that plastic measuring cups should not go on the bottom rack. They end up in the bottom where the heating element is and they get melted......As you can see by the picture. The 1 cup didn't get it too bad, but will it still measure a cup?!

So, maybe for Mother's Day I will receive some new measuring cups....maybe metal would be the best route. Awww, heck why not throw in some metal measuring spoons while you're at it. Because anyone who knows me knows that I don't always learn my lesson the first time around. This will probably happen again :)

This one was a referral from Rebecca's little book club! The woman, Cindy, said that the ladies were talking about my cakes and even handing out my card to everyone-THANKS Rebecca and Heather (not sure if anyone else that I know is in the group). That's pretty awesome of you!

This woman's son is having his first holy communion this weekend so she wanted a special cake for him. It's yellow cake with chocolate fudge filling iced in chocolate buttercream covered in fondant. Can you say YUMMY! ? Challenging cake, but one that I've been wanting to do for a while now.

One of my amazing DK volunteers asked me to make this cake for an upcoming bridal shower. The couple met in Ireland and love it there. So, she asked me to do this cake with a bouquet of shamrocks....what a cute idea!?

Not sure why but this is one of my favorite cakes to do. Maybe it's just the simplicity and elegance if it....

April 29, 2010

Dinner Helpers

Tonight I needed Ritz smashed up so we changed it up a little bit. I put the crackers in 2 baggies (one for each girl) and they got to step and jump on the bags to smash the crackers up. The loved it and so did I!

I built the girls first fort today. The loved crawling in and out of their new "home".

April 27, 2010

Sickly

And to think that I thought we were out of the woods! Little Layner has been just plain pitiful today. She has not been her active crazy self at all. All she's wanted to do is sleep and lay on the couch. She is on her third nap of the day as I type! She normally takes one nap.

She's been burning up all day with a fever. It's just been a mild one though. Here she is "checking her forehead" to see if she has a fever.

Here's Hayden helping me crush the crackers for the dinner recipe. I had just given her a bath, so excuse the hair and pj t-shirt. Now the sweater......that was all her idea!

April 26, 2010

Buggy Garden Tags Craft

Well, I received my Family Fun magazine this week and I just HAD to make the cute little garden tags that they pictured on the front page. We needed garden tags for the vegetable garden so it worked out well!

April 24, 2010

Frog Cupcakes!

To go with the princess and the frog cake I made yesterday. Strawberry cupcake with buttercream icing and fondant eyes.

The whole set up!

On a different cake baking note-If you haven't noticed things have been picking up for me in the sweets business lately. I can only thank God for bringing me the business and giving me the talent that He's given me. It's amazing and I love just about every minute of it! I have EIGHT cakes already for the month of May!! i'm so busy that I'm looking into getting a program called Cake Boss (nothing to do with the show on TLC) that will help me stay organized, price products, keep up with recipes, keep up with clients, schedule cakes, and so much more. It's a really awesome program!! I also just found out that Cricut is coming out with Cricut Cake (click here for more information). It's a Cricut machine designed especially for cake artists (that's the title that Jeremy came up for me). I just feel like I am at a very exciting place with the cake business right now and I can't wait to see what else the Lord has in store for Sugar & Spice Sweets.

April 23, 2010

One of the Greatest Things You Could Ask a 3 Year Old Girl!

So, today Mwende and Johnny called with a very special question for little Diddle. They started out with a bit of small talk and then....

they asked her to be the "flower princess" in their wedding. I told him that he may want to present it to her like that since she doesn't know what a flower girl is but she sure knows what a princess is!! She was so excited and she ended the conversation by saying, "Oh, I have pink princess dress so I'll just wear that." And she went running back to her room....

Two minutes later this is how she looked when she reappeared. Thankfully, I was still on the phone with them so they were able to realize just how excited she was about being asked to be the "flower princess" in their wedding. Thanks guys....you have already made her day, week, month and she hasn't even gotten to be the princess yet!!

I made these for our Relay for Life team....well, sort of. We are going to sell hot dogs and treats tonight at the event. So, that's why they have the white and purple drizzle. I have been wanting to try these out for a while now. Listen to the description-chocolate cupcake topped with a peanut butter mouse then dipped in melted chocolate!

Can you believe this?! I know all of the chocolate peanut butter lovers out there are about to eat their computer screen!

April 22, 2010

"Like Hundred Dollars"

Tonight the girls were helping me get dinner ready and Hayden found some cash on the counter. She held it up to the light-as if to make sure it isn't counterfeit. This child doesn't even "get" what money is and how it's used, let's go a step further and say that she doesn't even know what written numbers look like....but she sure does know how to tell if the green back is real or not.

Here they are working together to peel, core, and slice the apple that we needed for tonight's dinner.

Then they got to enjoy the peel and the core of the apple. Layne took the peel and....

Hayden took the core.

As soon as the weekend baking begins my stand mixer comes off of the shelf of my kitchen island. That means it's "pretend time" for the girls. Normally it's just Hayden who sits in the little cubby and pretends that she's the mom and talks to all of her pretend kids that live in the wooden walls of the box. But today Layne joined in the fun and since she watches sister play pretend she just joined right in with the jibber jabber.

This morning Layne was carrying her blanket around and she decided to take a pretend nap on the carpet. Snoring was involved!

Then she popped up and played Peek-A-Boo.

Notice that she's headed down the hallway-she likes to walk around the house with blankets over her head. I guess it's a challenge or something. She rarely runs into stuff. Maybe it's practice for when she navigated through the house in darkness at 6AM EVERY SINGLE MORNING! Could you sense the annoyance about that?!

Last night Hayden helped me make blue berry muffins for her class. What a great little baker she's becoming!

April 17, 2010

Stopping to Smell the Flowers...

I picked on of the hibiscus blooms for Layner this afternoon. She sat there and stared at it for a little while and then....

....is anyone really surprised?!

Poor girl was up twice last night throwing up. I will spare you the details, so all I will say is instead of just one person being sick last night it was almost two! I had to call Jeremy in for back up! She got sick again this afternoon :( Then she just zonked out on the couch-in the middle of dress up as you can see. No fever, just can't keep anything down....We'll see how tonight goes.

The other morning Layne and I met Janna and Josie for some coffee and conversation. Layne had a mini donut and I had a green tea lemonade. The girls played with all the chairs outside while Janna and I caught up and chatted about life. It was a nice start to the morning.

And this is what happened on the way home from Starbucks!

Little Layner and her stuffed animals. She has no problem just sprawling out on the floor with her doggie, bear, or blankie.

Last night was Discover Point co-ed softball team's first softball game. The girls and I were up at DP for A Night Out until 9, but afterwards we came to the ball field to see daddy play. They were SO EXCITED to see daddy. As soon as we pulled in the parking lot they started screeching and squealing like teenage girls at a Twilight movie. After they saw daddy and said HI they found their friends and more importantly......the DIRT! What is it with dirt and kids?!

What a cute theme for a baby shower!? Thanks to edible images printed by Publix the cake was cute too!!

I tried to make it look kind of like a whimsical over-sized fairy tale book.

White cake with an almond buttercream filling covered in fondant.

Another Candy Barrel.

I wanted to change this up a bit. So, I made a tall 6 inch cake with an M&M boarder at the bottom and the banner on top. Just like to make all of my creations look a little different from one another. Chocolate chocolate chip cake with cookies and cream filling!

Yesterday I got a very awesome phone call. It was Sandra telling me that she had an extra pre sale buddy pass to the Mother of Multiples consignment sale. AWESOME! So, Angela and I met Sandra up there and shopped and shopped. I couldn't even believe how cheap the cute clothes were. I told myself that I wouldn't spend more than 3 dollars on an item-I didn't and I got some amazing things for the girls! I even got them some dress up clothes. Here's Layner in her $1.50 tutu and Hayden in her $2.00 princess dress!! Thanks for the special invite Sandra....it just made my day!!